


Hic Sunt Dracones

by prairiecrow



Series: Terra Incognita [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Knight Rider (1982), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Flashbacks, M/M, Trouble Sleeping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-06
Updated: 2013-01-06
Packaged: 2017-11-23 23:31:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/627740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neither of them can sleep, but a single solution applies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hic Sunt Dracones

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place four days after "Terra Incognita".

Tony Stark stood at the window of his darkened penthouse and looked out over the jewelled skyline of New York City, briskly sipping his second glass of bourbon and wondering why the hell he wasn't asleep at 2:23 a.m. It wasn't like he had any excuse to be up: the night was quiet in every respect, with no world-threatening terrors to battle and Pepper in Japan for the next five months. He was alone, and he was enjoying a rare interlude of peace.  

So why couldn't he take advantage of it? 

He swirled dark alcohol on his tongue before swallowing it. "JARVIS, is KITT still awake?" 

It was a bit of a nonsensical question — A.I.s did not sleep in the human sense — but Tony's faithful servant understood what he was getting at. _"Affirmative, sir."_  

"But the team assigned to him went off duty five and a half hours ago." 

 _"Indeed, sir."_  

He pondered that for a moment, then muttered: "So what the hell's keeping _him_ up?" Under normal circumstances, an A.I. without current input or an active task to perform would shut itself down until needed… at least, if that A.I. was designed by Tony Stark. Evidently KITT's engineers back in the 1980s had come to a different conclusion: he would shut himself off if given a direct order, which the team issued every night when they left the lab, but 67% of the time he didn't stay that way. Including tonight. 

Turning from the window, Tony commanded: "Show me his current process flow in real time." JARVIS obeyed, and for a long span of seconds he studied the transparent window that sprang into existence in front of him, noting the tightly controlled tracks that marked most of KITT's maintenance processes compared to the sharply jagged disturbance characterizing the computer's memory archive interface. He recognized the pattern of that disturbance from having seen it multiple times before, but a sweep of his hand maximized the archive interface feed to a video image and confirmed his conclusion.  

"God _damn_ it," he swore, softly but with deep feeling. "He's reliving it again. _Again!_ " 

The moment when KITT's 'life' had changed forever — the moment when it had ended, really. Michael Knight's urgent call for him over the comlink they shared, his final race down deserted midnight streets at extremely illegal speeds, and his barely-controlled skid around a corner into a dark alley barely wide enough for his automobile body to navigate. Knight slumped against the wall, dazed from a blow to the head, with a gun barrel pressed to his neck by a two-bit thug named Barry Host. The last seconds of a life, or rather of two lives, recorded in perfect high fidelity. 

In a split second, KITT had calculated that he was lined up in a perfect position to cut the startled gunman off at the knees if he just kept going at his present speed and heading. He would miss Knight, the criminal would be killed, and his driver would be saved — 

But KITT was Asimoved, so instead he'd obeyed his programming and braked sharply — and the bastard had shot Knight point-blank in the throat. KITT's driver had bled out within seconds, staring into KITT's scanner and trying desperately to call his partner's name with his dying breath. 

At that point the memory slice ended with a flicker of static, and beyond it, and the medical details of exactly how Knight had died, the other available records became downright sketchy concerning the car he'd left behind. Only two phrases really lingered in Tony's mind: _The A.I. is experiencing significant cognitive dissonance concerning its role in the fatal incident_ , and _Given the intensity of the driver imprint, and the projected length of time required for reprogramming and rehabilitation, it is our recommendation that KITT be summarily terminated_.  

The decision had been kicked up to Devon Miles, the then-Executive Director of FLAG, but obviously Miles had elected to have KITT deactivated and dismantled rather than destroyed. Perhaps that indicated a certain degree of compassion, maybe even of friendship — Miles had died in 1997 and wasn't around anymore to be asked. Friendship, probably. KITT had the kind of personality that grew on people like kudzu if given half a chance.  

But if it had been friendship, Tony had to question Miles' grasp of the situation. Death would have arguably been the more merciful option as far as KITT was concerned, given his personal conviction that his own mistake had gotten Knight killed. Instead he'd been placed in suspended animation, to be revived by Stark Industries in the twenty-first century and become the focus of a concerted effort to find a new application for his unique cognitive tech — and to spend his nights alone, replaying the worst twenty-two seconds of his brief existence over and over again. 

Tony could sympathize. He knew what it felt like to chew over the knowledge that you'd gotten somebody killed, many thousands of times over in fact. He knew what it meant to stare into the darkness and understand that you'd done something so terrible that no power on Earth, not even your own horror and regret, could reverse it.  

Horror? Regret? Not words that came naturally to mind in reference to computers, any more than the word _sympathy_ , but as he watched KITT's other indicators start to spike as well, higher and fiercer with each rerun of the memory, he couldn't for the life of him think of any terms that fit better. 

He crossed to the long couch, his gaze still on the display as it followed him, and slumped down into the comfort of expensive leather. "Open an audio channel," he ordered, and downed another mouthful of bourbon before querying: "KITT? I thought you'd been shut off hours ago." 

The spikes almost surged off the charts, signalling annoyance on top of everything else. " _Look who's talking,_ " the A.I. shot back. " _At least I don't need to sleep. You, on the other hand —_ " 

That was almost enough to make him laugh. He settled for a tired grimace and for pinching the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. "Come on, don't tell me you want to go yet another round of _Who's really in charge here_?" 

A dangerous pause, then a soft inflection: " _Are you going to order me to shut down?_ " 

He shrugged, for all the world as if his companion could see him, and took another drink. "Not really. Just thought maybe you could use the company." 

" _Well, I'm glad to see you at least have enough sense not to —_ " 

"Not your fault, KITT." 

The startled quality of his hesitation this time was reflected in the process markers. " _Excuse me?_ " 

"Not. Your. Fault." He enunciated each word with almost insulting clarity. "And besides, life has no take-backs. Do you really think that driving the same road over and over again is doing anybody any favours? It's a dead end — you know it, and I know it." 

A pause. On the display Tony saw the abstract representation of the A.I.'s scan as he swept the array he was connected to, and perceived JARVIS's monitoring feed. " _Well well, Tony — so you're a voyeur on top of everything else?_ " He didn't expect this kind of mockery from a simulation, either. " _I must say I'm disappointed, though unfortunately not surprised. Besides, as long as I meet your benchmarks for performance why should you care how I —?_ " 

"Oh, pull the ten foot pole out of your tailpipe and just _listen_ to me for once, will you?" When it came to KITT, the distance between indulgence and tearing his hair out could sometimes be measured in millimetres — or in microseconds. "I've spent the past four days watching you grind your gears over Michael Knight's death, up to and including endlessly rerunning his snuff film after lights-out, and I'm here to tell you that that strategy _does not fucking work_. I've been there, I've done that, I've bought the electromagnet t-shirt, and there's only one thing that _does_ work, my buggy little friend." 

" _Oh?_ " The snide factor in his clipped Boston accent could have stripped paint from the hull of a battleship. " _And what might_ ** _that_** _be, pray tell?_ " 

"You pick yourself up, you dust yourself off, and you move the fuck on with your life." 

" _In case it's escaped your notice, I currently lack a body, or anything equivalent to hands — or much of an existence beyond this CPU, for that matter. Let me guess, you'd like me to take up championship solitaire in my spare time?_ " 

 _I'd like to grab you by the shoulders and shake you until your teeth rattle, you prissy little bastard,_ Tony thought savagely, but since that was physically impossible he drew a deep breath and took another swallow of alcohol, and schooled his tone to something like patience. "That's not going to be the case much longer. The refit and computer hardware upgrade on your former automobile body is almost complete. You'll be rolling again in seventy-two hours, tops." 

Sarcasm became surprise: " _My body? But, I thought that had been —_ " 

"Disassembled and sold off? Yeah, it had." More bourbon. "I tracked the parts down and bought them back. You owe me six million dollars and change." 

A quality entered KITT's voice that was harder to identify, but watching the spikes surge briefly and then begin to quiet down slightly, Tony thought he could tag it as hopefulness. " _I… I never thought I'd see it again."_ Definitely hopefulness now. _"And you intend to reinstall me in it?_ " 

He smirked into his drink. "I couldn't very well drive you if I didn't, could I?" 

Ah, now _that_ was interesting: the spikes abruptly smoothed right the fuck out on all fronts, except his probability calculation engine, which was still generating figures like mad. " _Let me get this straight: you intend to drive me?_ " 

"That's the plan." He paused a beat. "For starters." 

" _Why?_ " 

"Why not?" 

" _I've tapped into this tower's security feeds, and I've seen the stable full of vintage and modern automobiles you own, most of which you never use._ " More spikes. " _Surely you don't intend to put me out to pasture as one of_ ** _them_** _?_ " 

"If I did, I wouldn't have bothered figuring out how the hell to transfer your software into modern hardware. What would be the point?" 

" _When it comes to you, I never feel safe in guessing._ " 

The smirk became an outright grin. KITT was a lot of things, but slow-witted — or overly trusting — wasn't one of them. "I'm going to get you out there and circulating again, KITT — start giving you a working knowledge of the modern world, maybe pick up a few chicks along the way. We're gonna take a little road trip while R&D wraps up the next phase of your deployment." 

Cautiously: " _Just you and me?_ " 

He shrugged. "Pepper's been bugging me to take a vacation for months. Why the hell not?" 

The probability calculation engine feed became as smooth as oscillations of silk, as smooth as his artificial voice: " _I… I think I'd like that, Tony. In fact, I know I'd enjoy it a great deal._ " 

Amused and amazed, he stared at a set of indicators which, for the first time he was aware of since KITT had been reactivated, indicated a state of inner peace. _Wow._ Was that all it took? The offer of a little quality —? 

Then, out of the blue, a phrase from Dr. Jainhala's last progress report flashed to the surface of his mind: _Your presence calms the subject to a significant extent in spite of increased activity in the upper process registers, a trend which was observable on your first day in the lab and which has accelerated incrementally but steadily. The significance of this effect is presently unknown._  

But he knew, or at least he thought he did. KITT had been designed to function in partnership with a human being — more precisely, a human driver. He had already remarked on several occasions, usually in the context of an insult, that Tony Stark reminded him in this respect or that of Michael Knight. It hadn't been a comparison that Tony had welcomed given how it was phrased, but now… well, maybe now he was realizing that that comparison was the highest compliment that KITT was capable of offering. 

And if the A.I. really _was_ imprinting on him — well, that would fall neatly in line with his own goals, very neatly indeed. He sure as hell wanted something in place when he transferred KITT's program into the power suit android… 

But that was at least two weeks away. "First things first, kiddo. I'm bringing in someone to meet you the day after tomorrow." He rubbed the back of his neck and tipped his head back to stretch the muscles along his shoulders, suddenly feeling the day's weariness catch up with him. "Name's Steve Rogers. I think you're gonna like him — he's a fine upstanding sort of guy, just your type." 

The dry tone was back. " _Coming from you, why do I get the feeling that wasn't a compliment?_ " 

Tony smiled thinly. "Maybe. Maybe not." No, it wasn't quite weariness: he was amazed all over again to recognize it as a species of relief, draining the restless tension from his body. The indicators were still curving along like waves on the ocean in an Japanese print. "But he's somebody who can sympathize with being a couple of decades out of your own time. I'm guessing the two of you will find a lot to talk about." 

" _He sounds like a fascinating character._ " A thoughtful pause. " _This decade seems to have no shortage of those, does it?_ " 

He chuckled and drained his drink, then tipped his head back again and closed his eyes, feeling like he could sleep for a hundred years. "Just wait until you meet Thor…" 

" _Who?_ "  

"I'll explain sometime when I'm more awake, okay? Okay. Nighty-night, KITT." 

" _Goodnight, Tony._ " The tiniest hesitation, then a softer lilt: " _Pleasant dreams._ " 

"Hm." He smiled and flicked his fingers across his throat, signalling JARVIS to cut off the transmission. Half-floating toward his bed, he had a sudden image of a red marker, indicating himself, heading rapidly into the black uncharted realms at the edge of the map — a visualization that was soon lost in genuine dreams of speed, and exhilaration, and limitless effortless power under his hand, while the wind blew freely against his naked face and streamed tousled hair back off his careless brow. 

THE END


End file.
